Paradise Falls (33 page)

“It’s just a puzzle,” said Jacob. “People over-think it. It’s a process. It’s not trying to trick you. Math was invented to make things easier. Your mother make you do the origami, too?”

She shook her head. “No. That was me. I like it. It’s soothing. Why did you take a job at the high school? I mean… you don’t really need a cover story, do you? You could have just moved back to town.”

“You want the truth?” he said. “I hoped you’d be there… and I really do want to be a math teacher. I think that’s what I’d be if not for all this.”

She sighed, but she smiled, too.

“What are we going to do?”

“I can’t let that bar go. If Ellison was telling the truth, there’s probably at least twenty girls there. That has to stop.”

She nodded. “How? We’re not the police, Jacob. There must be dozens of men in that gang. You’re one…
we’re
just two people.”

“I don’t think it matters. If I don’t go after them, they’ll come for us. I’m sure Ellison is going to tell them I killed the leader’s son. He probably already has.”

Jennifer rolled onto her back, resting her head on his arm rather than the pillow.

“Somebody moves drugs through Paradise Falls,” said Jennifer. “A lot of drugs. We’re a distribution point. That’s going to be a big business, right?”

“Yes. Huge. Millions of dollars, maybe hundreds of millions.” He laughed. “James Katzenberg is one of the biggest advocates of the War on Drugs. He’s sponsored about ten bills, has lots of contacts in the DEA and law enforcement. Don’t you remember his commercials?”

“I wasn’t paying attention the last time, and before that I wasn’t old enough to vote.”

“It’s part of his man of the people thing. Tough on crime, protecting your children from the evils of drug addiction and all that. I need to get one of these trucks. See who’s moving the goods and where they’re coming from.”

“They make the deliveries at the old weigh station,” said Jennifer.

He shook his head. “No, they know we know now. They’ll move it somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, but Ellison is going to tell us.”

Jennifer sat up and yawned. She looked at the clock. It was almost four now.

“I can’t go back to sleep. Do you think you can get up?”

“Yes.”

He did, though with great effort.

“What are we going to do about our jobs?” said Jennifer. “School was supposed to start up on Monday.”

“I don’t know,” said Jacob. “I’ll worry about that later. Right now, I need to get cleaned up.”

Jennifer turned red and almost jumped off the bed.

“I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Sighing, Jacob limped into the bathroom as she closed the door behind her.

6.

Jennifer sat on a tall stool in the kitchen, slicing bits of cheese off a block and eating them with crackers, and washing it down with water. She swung her legs in front of the stool and chewed slowly. Now that she’d left the bedroom, the world was unreal, like there was a clear layer of plastic over everything. She looked at her hands. They felt like someone else’s hands. Or, maybe, she dreamed it all and she was just lying in bed. No one was beaten or shot, no one died.

It
was
real, though, and her hand shook so hard the cheese slipped off her cracker and plopped on the table. She carefully scooped it up, took a deep breath and pinched her eyes shut. Every minute, there was another angle, another problem. First it was Elliot trying to drag her off the street, then Grayson trying to drag her out of her home. Now she was eating with the same hands that cradled a dying boy, thinking about break-ins and brothels and drugs.

“This is insane,” she said, aloud. “I’m just an English teacher.”

Hearing Jacob limping down the stairs, she rushed over. He leaned on the wall with one hand. His bandages were all changed, and he still looked deathly tired, yet he took his hand from the wall and walked steadily into the kitchen. Her hands moved on their own, her fingers fumbling together, as they did when she did not know where to put them. Finally she wrapped her arms around herself and moved back to the table. The brazenness that led her to stay in the bed with him was gone. Her reserves were all used up.

“Jacob,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

He looked over. There was a fragility in his expression that pained her. It flickered there and was gone behind a mask as he steeled himself for bad news.

Jennifer swallowed, too a drink of water, and cleared her throat.

“I want you to train me.”

“Oh?”

“Teach me how to fight. I don’t want to be helpless anymore. If I can’t take care of myself, I’m just in your way.”

“Okay.”

She blinked. The argument she expected was not delivered.

“That’s it? Okay?”
 

“Okay. Were you expecting another answer?”

“Well…”

“Because you’re a woman?” he sighed. “It’s true that, on average, men are larger and stronger than women. It’s also true that a female weightlifter is stronger than the average man, a female sprinter can run faster, and a trained woman can win a fight with an untrained man. You’re already in good shape.”

“I want to know how to do the other stuff, too. How did you get out of those handcuffs?”

He shrugged. “Handcuff locks are simple. The idea is that the prisoner won’t have a key, and even if they can get one, it’s tough to manipulate something behind your back.”

“Well, you did,” she said. “While hanging upside down, with two people beating and cutting you.”

“I practice,” he said. “I have some cutaway and practice cuffs I manipulate while I’m working on other things. I’ll show you how they work. I got out of Ellison’s cuffs with the stem on one of the buttons from my jacket. When they ripped it off, the button caught on the cuff and I got ahold of it and used it to shim the lock open while they were working on me.”

“Wow.”

“Pure luck,” he sighed. He poured some powder and and handful of frozen strawberries into a blender, follow by some oats and milk, then turned it on. When he was done blending he said, “Next time I’ll be ready. I’m working on a way to keep some simple picks and shims in my hair.”

He poured not one glass, but two. He set one in front of Jennifer and downed half of his in big gulps, wincing as if he’d taken a stiff drink. Jennifer sniffed the concoction he offered her. The fruit smell had a chalky, flat background to it. The taste was the same. The strawberries helped, but it was like drinking glue with tiny bits of uncooked oatmeal in it. She grimaced and set it down.

“Finish your breakfast.”

“Ugh.”

“You want to train? You have to eat. You won’t be able to keep up with me and live on cheese and crackers. Just drink it, don’t nurse it.”

She wrinkled her nose and gave him a sour look, but downed the rest of the… stuff in two long pulls. He was satisfied even though there was still a little down at the bottom and some gloopy, chunky remnants sliding down the sides. Jennifer covered her mouth and burped, and all she could taste was oatmeal and chalk. Jacob snickered as he filled the glasses with water and set them in the sink.

“That was breakfast. I’ll make your other five meals, too.”

“Five? You want me to eat six times a day?”

“Yes. I don’t want your metabolism slowing down when you’re awake. Let’s go downstairs.”

“It’s four thirty in the morning.”

Jacob sighed. “You have something better to do?”

Tilting her chin up, she stalked over to the basement door while he unlocked it and followed him down. For all his bravado he had to stop halfway and lean on the wall.

“Are you going to do something that makes you start bleeding again?”

“No. I’m just going to show you what to do.”

First, he had her stretch. That came naturally, and she needed no instruction. Years of stretching before her floor exercises came right back, and she stretched before and after long bike rides anyway. Feeling adventurous, she rose from the floor without using her hands, flexing her hurt ankle after she stood. Jacob led her to a big box made of steel rails. His weight bars were all Olympic style, seven feet long with big fat ends.

He adjusted the rack to bring the bar down to her height and had her duck under it and rack it up on her shoulders, empty at first. It was surprisingly heavy, but easy to move. When she set it to rest on the rack, he moved to either side and put heavy metal plates on the ends. Jennifer eyed them.

“I want to see how much you can do. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“Am I going to get all bulky?”

“No.”

This time, it was more difficult, but she still dipped down and pushed back up in regular rhythm. Now, though, she could feel the tension in her limbs as she brought the weight to rest and stepped back. Jacob put on yet more weight, and again she eyed him.

“I need to spot you, now. Is that okay?”

“Spot me?”

“Stand behind you in case you fall. I wont’ touch you unless it looks like you’re going to get hurt.”

Nodding, she looked away. There was no judgement in his voice, but she hated that he saw her that way, liable to crack like glass if he unexpectedly put his hands on her. Glaring at herself in the mirror behind the squat rack, she dipped under the bar. Now it was heavier, much heavier, and she could feel the metal pressing against the base of her neck as she clenched the knurled bar in a tight grip, stood up to unrack it, and drew in a deep breath before dipping down.

As she reached the bottom of the movement it felt like the weight was going to push her all the way down, but she managed to push out of it, tensing her whole body until she was shaking, her deep breath escaping as she reached the top. Clenching her teeth, she dropped down and did it again, and again, and again. Her legs were shaking.

Jacob put his hands on her sides and guided her forward to re-rack the weight, then pulled away when she leaned on the bar and panted. Sweat popped on her forehead and back.

“You’re not done.”

“I can’t do anymore.”

“I’m going to lower the weight.”

“How much was that?”

As he pulled the big plates off, he shrugged.

“One thirty-five.”

“What? You’re lying.”

“Nope.”

“That’s more than I weigh.”

“For now,” he said.

She eyed him.

“For your height and body type I’d say you want to be between one-forty and one sixty.”

“That’s too heavy.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“What-“

He put his hands on her sides. She froze, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, softening a little. He moved his fingertips up her sides.

“I know you can feel my fingers moving over those bumps.”

“So?”

“Jennifer, those are your ribs. If you keep going like this, you’re going to get sick.”

“I’m perfectly healthy. I can bike ten miles without breaking a sweat.”

“I saw you fridge when I visited your house. You have a serious nutritional imbalance. The way you exert yourself with cardio, you’re going to damage your heart. You could even have a stroke.”

Her hands balled into fists, and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a sneer. “You’re not my mother.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, calmly. “Your mother wanted to starve you. I want you to be healthy. I’m not going to help you make yourself anorexic, Jennifer. If you want to train with me you’re going to eat right and do as your told.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. That’s what training is. If you already know what you’re doing, you don’t need to be trained, do you?”

She sighed.

“If I were a drill sergeant I’d make you do push ups, but I’m not. I’m going to make you do deadlifts. Come over here.”

He led her through more exercises.
Deadlifts
consisted of lifting a loaded bar off the floor, one even heavier than the squats. At first she didn’t see the point, but by the time she was done she was winded again and her legs were trembling. She thought she’d collapse on the floor if he made her do more leg exercises. Thankfully, he laid her down on a bench and had her do presses instead, with a much lower weight. It was only three exercises in all, but she was sweaty and exhausted. She laid there for a while, resting her hands on her stomach as she caught her breath.
 

“We’re not done.”

“Now what?”

He moved over to the mats, near the punching bags. Jennifer strode over and waited.

“I want you to kick me in the face.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t argue with me. Just do it.”

Jennifer shrugged, spread her feet, and hesitated.

“Don’t be timid. You’re not going to hurt me.”

“Are you
sure?”

“Do it.”

She sighed, and kicked with all her might, slashing her foot at his face. Jacob tipped back, and her foot missed his chin. His left arm swept up and his fingers just touched her ankle and she went flying, twisting in the air with a shocked scream. Before she hit the ground, he ducked and caught her, dipping her like a dancer. She laid back in his arms for a moment before he slowly raised her to her feet, and she felt heat spreading on her skin, but not from exertion this time. Her heart fluttered as he rested a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

“What the-“

“Eventually you’ll be able to hit me. Your form is all wrong, though.”

“How?”

“You’re trying to put all your muscle into it and you’re throwing yourself off balance. You can do better than that. I just have to show you how.”

“Okay, so show me.”

He shook his head. “You have to practice it. Baby steps. First we’ll work on your balance and form. Do what I do. I’m going to go slow.”

He stood next to her, spread his feet, and dropped down, bending at the knee. Jennifer did the same, carefully looking down at herself to make sure she was mimicking his movements exactly. He didn’t kick, but slowly extended his right arm from the side, and then his left, then raised his right knee to his chest, and then his left. As Jennifer copied him he went faster and faster until he stopped, clutching his chest.